Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:58:10 +0100 (CET) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG, timo.schoeler@riscworks.net Subject: Re: FreeBSD's problems as seen by the BSDForen.de community Message-ID: <200801111058.m0BAwAMG001075@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <47873B06.9010603@riscworks.net>
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Timo Schoeler wrote: > [...] While I agree with many of your points, I need to write a small comment on this one: > FreeBSD is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As was stated in > bsdforen.de, I should run ultra stable on servers, as it *used to be*. > It no longer is. Instead, there are drivers written for HD Audio... Is > there something I missed? Logic or Cubase already ported to FreeBSD? No? FreeBSD supported soundcards from day one, in the good old days of the 8bit SoundBlaster cards. Today, many computers (especially laptops) come with HD audio hardware that works only in HD mode. It requires an HD audio driver to do anything more than a square wave beep. Without the HD audio driver, I wouldn't be able to play any sound on most of my newer computers, which is why I am very grateful to the people (Ariff and others) who worked on that driver. I certainly would not want to switch to a different OS just because of sound support. > So why waste resources and write this driver? 'Because one can.' I think the real answer is: You cannot prevent anyone from writing a piece of software, no matter how useless or ridiculous it might be for the majority of users. If there's someone who wants to write a driver for a USB christmas tree or for a bluetooth canned laughter device -- he will do it, and you can't keep him from doing it. It will even go into the CVS tree (though probably not into GENERIC) if the source is clean, style(9)-compliant and well maintained. But even if it doesn't go into the tree, that's not a big deal. For example, for several years I maintained some patches that improved syscons (kern/15436). They didn't go into CVS, but they worked fine for me and a few others. You can't tell people how to waste their resources in their free time. They waste it on whatever they want, no matter what the FreeBSD project tells them, no matter if there's a strong leader or not. Of course, things are a little different when certain pieces of software are sponsored (like the TrustedBSD stuff), or when they are done for other purposes than for pure fun, e.g. as part of a students project. That's how things like IPFW and DUMMYNET came to life, IIRC. > The problem is, that when people start to migrate *away* from FreeBSD > (like was stated in bsdforen.de, where some guy's company could no > longer justify to recommend FreeBSD to their customers, because they had > way too many problems with it), then a chain reaction is started. Actually I think that bsdforen.de issue is overrated (I don't even think bsdforen.de is the largest German BSD community, but that's a different story). It's true that there are certainly problems, as the OP explained in his initial posting. Those problems do exist; I've been a victim of one or another myself. But I don't think that significant amounts of FreeBSD people are now running away from it. Especially long-time FreeBSD people should know better than to run away. Everybody who's been following FreeBSD seriously for a few years or more should know how to produce _good_ bug reports and get them to the attention of developers, especially when they're critical and affect many people. Several of the PRs submitted by myself are still open and idle, but those are simply not critical enough to waste time hunting developers. All of my PRs that I regard as critical have been taken care of. Personally I've always looked in the directions of other OS projects (Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and recently Dragon- Fly), and even tried them out sometimes on spare machines or just within qemu. None of them convinced me enough to replace FreeBSD for production use, though, for various reasons. In fact there were instances when certain pieces of hardware were reliably supported by FreeBSD, but not at all by Linux. (I should tell those stories on chat@.) Well, to get at least a little bit on-topic here, let me say that I think that -current seems to be in a very good state today. I've been mostly following the -stable branches on the machines I'm responsible for, but I also give -current a try every now and then, just to get a feel for what's happening at the "bleeding edge". Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd C++: "an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog" -- Steve Taylor, 1998
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